Why you keep downplaying yourself: as someone who's experienced trauma

What happens to our sense of worth when we experience trauma? Particularly trauma that attacks who we are as a person… 

• Bullying
• DV
• SA
• Stalking
• Being told we aren’t good enough as a child

In this episode I explain what it looks like to:

1. Downplaying your worth and knowledge
2. Downplaying your lived experiences

Journal Prompts: 

• Where are you downplaying your worth and your experience? 
• Where are you minimising your personal experiences? 
• Where is it time for you to claim, take responsibility and ownership of your truth? 

Connect with me: 

• Download the Autopilot as a Trauma Response Guide
• Register for my Free Masterclass: Stop Living on Autopilot & Start Living Your Dreams
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaci.rogash/
• Book a Discovery Call
• Join the Visionaries Waitlist
• Email: jaci@jacirogash.com

Transcript

Transcript

00:00:00

Welcome to Thriving After Trauma, a podcast to help you move beyond surviving and support you to truly thrive in every area of your life.

00:00:09

Sometimes it's scary to claim your big desires because of your past.

00:00:12

This podcast will give you the courage to put yourself first and make your dreams a priority.

00:00:17

I'm Jackie, an award-winning trauma transformation coach, breathwork facilitator and international speaker.

00:00:24

I am so excited to bring you these deep, honest and real conversations as a way of supporting you to truly thrive after trauma.

00:00:32

What happens to our sense of self-worth when we experience trauma, particularly trauma that attacks the person that we are, that attacks us?

00:00:43

And when I talk about that, I'm thinking bullying, domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, being told you weren't good enough as a child.

00:00:51

Having someone specifically target you for you.

00:00:55

And while you might think sexual assault or stalking might not be a personal attack, I can tell you very personally and from personal experience that it absolutely feels like that.

00:01:08

Even if it is one of the very random cases where

00:01:13

the parties are unknown to each other, you still take it personally.

00:01:18

It is still something and becomes an issue about us.

00:01:24

When we experience something like this, the impact that it has often runs so much deeper than what we realize.

00:01:32

Yes, of course, there are moments where we're like, why did this happen to me?

00:01:37

Why did they do that?

00:01:38

How could they do that?

00:01:40

You know, and

00:01:41

Naturally, sometimes we start to think, what's wrong with me?

00:01:46

What did I do to deserve this?

00:01:49

And for the most part, the trauma is what has happened.

00:01:56

The residual effect of that trauma is the impact that it has on our worth, how we view ourselves, how much we believe that we are deserving.

00:02:08

And it's pretty messed up.

00:02:11

if I'm honest.

00:02:12

Again, from personal experience, it took me so long to connect with and realize my worth.

00:02:22

And to be honest, even sometimes, I don't.

00:02:26

There are still some times that I downplay myself, my knowledge, my experience, my worth, because of what I've been through.

00:02:39

And it sucks.

00:02:40

It sucks.

00:02:42

Nearly every single one of my clients, when I talk to them, they have this, they look at their friends and their family and the people that they love and they're like, they're so amazing.

00:02:53

They can do everything that they want.

00:02:54

They're like brilliant people and I don't know why they can't see it.

00:02:58

And I kind of have a little internal chuckle because I look at them and I see the same thing.

00:03:05

But for them, they don't see themselves in that light because their experiences have led them to believe that they're not worth it, that they're not deserving, that they're not good enough.

00:03:17

Yet they see the best in everybody else.

00:03:20

And in this episode, I want to talk to this specifically in two parts.

00:03:26

You know, there is so much we could talk about, but I want to talk about downplaying your worth and your knowledge

00:03:34

and downplaying your lived experiences.

00:03:38

They're 2 frustrations of mine, but also something that I know that so many people do.

00:03:45

So let's look at downplaying your worth and knowledge.

00:03:48

What I mean by this is settling for less than you deserve, downplaying what you know, downplaying your skills.

00:04:01

And why do we do it?

00:04:02

I think for a long time, I used to downplay my brilliance, downplay my strengths, because I wanted the compliment that came with, me putting myself down.

00:04:15

Someone said, oh, you're so good at that.

00:04:16

I'd be like, oh, you don't know what you're talking about.

00:04:17

And then they'd be like, no, they came back for that.

00:04:20

And it wasn't that I was fishing for compliments, right?

00:04:22

I wasn't doing it specifically to get a compliment.

00:04:26

I was doing it because I needed that validation.

00:04:29

And it was a subconscious thing.

00:04:31

Right.

00:04:31

I didn't believe what they said.

00:04:34

Firstly, I did not believe that, when I received a compliment, I didn't believe it.

00:04:40

I wasn't able to receive it.

00:04:41

That was always been a really big struggle of mine.

00:04:46

And on the flip side of that, there was a part of me that needed that validation.

00:04:52

It needed someone to, you know, pump up my tires a little bit because I never did that.

00:04:59

Similarly, I see so many other people when we think about, what they're great at, they downplay themselves.

00:05:09

And in today's society, I think it's really common because you can have influencers who, have no skills or experience in certain areas, but are famous or are making a lot of money or doing a lot of things.

00:05:25

And

00:05:27

We look at something and it's like, oh, well, I'm not as successful as them or as famous as them or as well known as them, so I mustn't be any good.

00:05:35

And it's ******* rubbish, right?

00:05:38

I have had so many conversations with my coach, my coaches and mentors and also other coaches where we talk about how frustrating it is when you can be so good at something and love something so much and it feel hard.

00:05:54

Right?

00:05:55

And then on the flip side, you can see some people, and this is not dissing anyone, but you can see some people who don't seem to give a **** about what they do and potentially are not very good at it, but are super successful.

00:06:12

You know, it's frustrating.

00:06:16

Another frustration, which is a complete random sidetrack,

00:06:21

is I get so frustrated by people who just go on the internet and just **** can other people for the sake of it.

00:06:28

It's like what, and often, especially in Australia, often people **** can other people because they're good at something or because they make them uncomfortable.

00:06:39

And rather than sitting with that and going inwards, we project onto other people.

00:06:45

But I want to give you a personal example of this.

00:06:48

And this is something that

00:06:50

I've probably been hiding because there's a bit of shame that I have around it.

00:06:55

And yeah, there is, there's shame.

00:06:58

And I don't know, there shouldn't be, but there is.

00:07:02

So I have this story that, you know, once you go full-time in your business, that should be it, right?

00:07:09

That if you're a successful coach, you never have to worry about money.

00:07:12

If you're a great coach, you're always going to have an abundance of clients coming in, you're fully booked, you're all of that stuff.

00:07:19

And I get quite triggered by some people who only talk about money.

00:07:25

Like it's a real trigger for me, who coaches that only talk about money.

00:07:29

But for the last almost 12 months, I've been looking for some work.

00:07:37

And in this season of life, we're okay.

00:07:40

But with a wedding coming up very, very, very soon, we need to build a garage.

00:07:45

Like there's a bunch of things going on.

00:07:48

So our

00:07:49

incomings are less than our outgoings.

00:07:52

And, again, it's a privilege to be in the position to be like, we want to build a new garage, which is not a cheap thing.

00:08:01

So it's not the, I'm like between me and Chris, we're not making, we're making enough money to live, but for those extra things, it's a stretch.

00:08:12

So I've been looking for work for 12 months and I've been very particular

00:08:18

about it, but there have been some positions that I've applied for knowing that they're right up my alley, that they suit me to a tee that I could do the job hands down.

00:08:31

And there's a couple of those jobs that I haven't been successful in and not even getting an interview for.

00:08:38

And I took that, there's a couple of them that I've taken personally.

00:08:44

It's almost like, why wouldn't you interview me?

00:08:48

You know,

00:08:49

me, how good I am at my job or how good I was at my job when I was working for someone else.

00:08:54

And you're not even interviewing me.

00:08:57

It's like, are you threatened?

00:08:59

Is it me that you don't like?

00:09:01

You know, it's really hard not to take it personally when, you know, like when you know people.

00:09:05

And there's other jobs that I haven't worked for their businesses or organizations or anything like that, but it's like, I can do this job.

00:09:11

And what I noticed is I started settling.

00:09:15

I started looking for any, not any job, like I've still been very particular, but jobs that pay significantly less than what I had previously earned, full-time jobs knowing that I'd never wanted to work full-time because my business is my priority.

00:09:33

And it was getting, like, it was really deflating.

00:09:39

It was really deflating because I knew that I was downplaying my worth.

00:09:41

I knew that I was downplaying my experience.

00:09:44

I knew that I was downplaying what I was good at and what I'm passionate about just to try and get a foot in the door.

00:09:50

And then randomly I had a conversation with someone that I knew and they were like, oh my God, your skills are exactly what we need.

00:09:59

And fast forward, in one week I was offered four jobs, four positions and

00:10:07

One had taken a really long time.

00:10:10

Another one was like, I don't really want it, but if I need to.

00:10:14

And the one that I have taken fits every single box.

00:10:20

It is flexible around my business.

00:10:23

It is doing work that I love in the trauma space.

00:10:26

It honors my investigation skills, like is basically made for me.

00:10:33

And the best part about this is

00:10:36

that it was pretty much created for me because someone else saw my worth.

00:10:43

And yes, I'm getting emotional about this.

00:10:44

I rang Chris when I got off the phone to them.

00:10:49

And I said, it's so nice to have someone value me.

00:10:56

It feels so good to have my skills and experience recognized instead of

00:11:05

constantly feeling like I'm not good enough.

00:11:09

And logically, I know that not getting a job or an interview isn't about me.

00:11:17

It's not a personal attack.

00:11:20

But emotionally, it's really hard to sit with that.

00:11:27

You know, I saw another friend who I used to work with when I worked in recruitment a lifetime ago.

00:11:33

who has been out of work for 12 months.

00:11:36

He was a HR director, incredible person, like amazing, just the type of person that you want to work with.

00:11:45

And he saw, I saw a post on LinkedIn recently where he had said that he's been out of work, he's been applying for jobs for however long.

00:11:52

He's had one or two interviews, but all of the feedback

00:11:55

is too experienced.

00:11:56

And he was like, what the ****?

00:11:58

And I agree with that.

00:12:01

It's like, how, and I also think back to my recruiting days where I thought the same.

00:12:05

And it's like, why are we, how, like, we're now down, we're, you know, what's the word?

00:12:13

Limiting people because they're experienced.

00:12:17

It's like, it makes no sense, right?

00:12:21

And when I think about this,

00:12:25

I think a lot of it speaks to society.

00:12:28

this makes society comfortable.

00:12:31

Us downplaying ourselves or we downplay ourselves to make other people comfortable.

00:12:37

We downplay ourselves because, you know, it's easier to fit in when we play small.

00:12:44

And on the flip side, I think there are a lot of hiring managers and hiring people in hiring positions who are threatened.

00:12:55

they're threatened by other people.

00:12:57

And it very obviously speaks to their insecurities, but it is so ridiculous that they are basically limiting their organisation or not supporting their organisation by bringing on someone that has these incredible skills.

00:13:16

And, you know, it's not only in the work situation.

00:13:19

I just use that because that was my that's been my personal experience recently.

00:13:23

And it was like,

00:13:24

I didn't think that I had ever been, I didn't even realize that I was downplaying my skills and downplaying my experience because, it was just getting really tedious.

00:13:35

But we do it in everyday life, right?

00:13:37

When we have conversations with people, we downplay what we know.

00:13:40

When someone appears to be an expert and we may not necessarily agree, we don't speak up because we don't want to upset the adult cart.

00:13:49

And it really sucks.

00:13:53

So I have a question for you, and that is, where are you downplaying your worth or your knowledge as a way of fitting in?

00:14:02

Where are you downplaying yourself as a way of fitting in?

00:14:07

Now I want to move on to the second part, downplaying your experiences.

00:14:12

And by this, I mean personal experience.

00:14:15

And one of my biggest frustrations as a coach and

00:14:19

If you've been here before and for a while you will have heard me speak about this before and I'm totally fine to repeat this every single day if I need to.

00:14:27

But so often we downplay our personal experience, we downplay our trauma, we downplay our situation because someone has it worse or because we feel like we shouldn't talk about it.

00:14:42

We shouldn't feel a certain way because who knows, who knows why.

00:14:48

I used to have, and when I used to train a lot for CrossFit, one of my coaches, and he's amazing, he has built and created some incredibly elite athletes and, is such an incredible person.

00:15:05

But when I was in the thick of my depression, I, like the worst period of my life, I was still, training was the one thing that kept me sane.

00:15:15

It also kept me alive, I believe.

00:15:17

I spent my whole days at the gym and there were days where I was just, scraping myself up off the ground.

00:15:25

I was so sad, so depressed.

00:15:28

And I'd go and he'd ask how I was.

00:15:30

And because I'm not very good at lying or at that stage, I couldn't.

00:15:35

I'd be like, I'm not great.

00:15:37

You know, things are pretty **** or whatever.

00:15:39

And he's like, yeah, but there's always people that are worse off than you.

00:15:43

I'm like, yeah.

00:15:44

And it was kind of like, I get it to a sense.

00:15:47

It's kind of like, put it aside, get your *** up and start training.

00:15:53

And it's also that mentality that can be really harmful for us, especially people who have experienced trauma that are trying to heal from it and grow past it, right?

00:16:05

Because we're getting this mindset of, oh, my experience wasn't so bad, so I shouldn't complain about it, or my experience wasn't so bad, so I should be grateful.

00:16:16

And I had a client call recently where this exact thing came up, where she said, oh, like it's not that I'm not grateful and I feel like I shouldn't say this, like I had a good life, but at the same time it wasn't good.

00:16:35

And you could see that discomfort with her speaking and acknowledging that parts of her life hadn't been good.

00:16:45

And I was like, why does, why can you not be grateful for what you had and also still acknowledge that some of it was really hard?

00:16:56

Because she's used to downplaying her experiences because there are other people that have it worse off.

00:17:01

And if you're going to play that game, you're always going to lose.

00:17:04

There is always going to be someone who has it worse, who has harder experiences.

00:17:12

But

00:17:15

Their experience is not yours, right?

00:17:19

Their experience is not yours.

00:17:20

The worst thing to happen to you and the hard times and the challenging times and the rough times are exactly that.

00:17:28

They are the hard times and the difficult times and the challenging times and the worst things to happen to you.

00:17:34

It's not about anyone else.

00:17:36

And as long as you continue to minimize your experience and the impact that it had on you,

00:17:42

the longer you are going to prolong your healing, you're going to prolong your self-belief, you're going to prolong your worth, because you're continually stuck in this cycle of, oh, it's not as bad as them, so I should just shut up and be grateful.

00:17:58

Sorry, what?

00:18:00

You know?

00:18:01

And again, I talk about my, the things that have happened to me, and they were horrible and they were horrific.

00:18:10

And at the same time,

00:18:12

I still had a pretty good life.

00:18:14

I had a great childhood.

00:18:16

I had a great upbringing.

00:18:17

I have so many wonderful memories of things that I did.

00:18:22

And also there have been some really **** times as well.

00:18:25

So I think, and this also, I think this is an indication of people who have started to do the inner work, right?

00:18:31

When we know and identify the victim mentality, we never want to be seen as a victim.

00:18:37

So then we sometimes, again,

00:18:41

pull back because it's like, oh, I don't want someone to think that if I'm talking about this, that I'm a victim.

00:18:46

Talk about your experiences.

00:18:48

That's the only way you're going to be able to move past them.

00:18:51

Don't minimize it just because someone else has it worse.

00:18:56

And you can hear that I'm frustrated and see that I'm frustrated because it happens too often.

00:19:03

Sure, sometimes we do over dramatize or something feels a lot bigger than it might be.

00:19:09

And so you can kind of move past that.

00:19:11

It's like, okay, I've been there, I've done this, I've seen this, let's move on.

00:19:17

But there are also going to be things in your life where it's like, was actually really ****.

00:19:24

That impacted me more than I realized.

00:19:27

Right?

00:19:28

And that for me, like, is probably the bullying.

00:19:32

For me, I kind of downplayed that.

00:19:34

I was like, oh, it doesn't matter.

00:19:36

It wasn't as bad as being raped or it wasn't as bad as

00:19:40

being in a violent relationship wasn't as bad as being stalked.

00:19:44

And in those moments, it wasn't.

00:19:45

And it doesn't seem as significant.

00:19:48

But the impact that has had on me probably runs deeper than all of the big, in air quotes, things that have happened to me.

00:20:01

And I downplayed that for so long.

00:20:03

It's like, oh yeah, and I was bullied.

00:20:06

And then I look at all of my limiting beliefs and all of my

00:20:09

like the way that I doubt myself and all of that, and that all relates to being bullied.

00:20:17

the other things were kind of just an additional layer that I had to work through to get to that.

00:20:23

And the thing that frustrates and annoys me about both of these situations, so when people downplay their worth and their knowledge and their skills and downplay their personal experiences, is they're settling.

00:20:35

You're settling.

00:20:37

You're telling yourself that

00:20:40

You don't deserve something or you're not good enough for something.

00:20:42

And it's based on someone else's opinion.

00:20:46

It's based on what someone else is doing, what someone else has experienced.

00:20:52

And I don't know when we get to the point where we realise that what we can do is not attached or tied to what anyone else is doing.

00:21:02

It's not attached or tied to what anyone else says.

00:21:07

There are so many people out there who have been like, and I've heard it, they told me that I couldn't do it, so I knuckled down and I did it.

00:21:14

And I love that.

00:21:19

I just, I also, it makes me sad that we don't live in a society where we're encouraged to promote ourselves.

00:21:30

We're encouraged to talk about our strengths.

00:21:34

where we're encouraged to own our experiences.

00:21:43

I hope one day we get to that point.

00:21:45

But it also feels like sometimes there's like, until you've made it, you're not allowed to do that.

00:21:51

And it's like, what does that even mean until you've made it?

00:21:57

Right?

00:21:57

Have I not made it because I'm now taking up some other work, which

00:22:03

is actually so aligned with my business.

00:22:07

Like it's ridiculous, And of course it does.

00:22:10

It's just adds a different and adds another layer of depth and skills and experience to me.

00:22:17

But for some ****** ** reason, I have in my mind that, oh, no, you shouldn't look for work from some other someone else.

00:22:23

No, don't consult to someone because, you know, you should only be coaching.

00:22:28

And it just it drives me nuts.

00:22:30

We have these narratives and you see it in network marketing all the time where it's like, you have to do it this way.

00:22:36

And if you're not, you're not going to be successful.

00:22:38

And I've worked with a number of clients who work in network marketing and you can just see it.

00:22:47

Like you can see it draining the life from them because they start questioning their worth and their value because success has been described a certain way.

00:22:59

So

00:23:01

I have some questions for you, if you're prepared to do it.

00:23:05

And that is, where are you downplaying your worth and your experience?

00:23:10

Where are you minimizing your personal experiences?

00:23:15

And where is it time for you to claim your truth?

00:23:20

Where is it time for you to claim and take responsibility and ownership of your truth?

00:23:29

Three big questions, and they're going to be super, super supportive.